Hakuou Academy Case File 1: Hina's Longest Night
by Dr-Wilder
Summary: Hinagiku Katsura is not exactly thrilled to have been called to the offices of Hakuou Academy's Student Council at around midnight, but when she finds the entire floor ransacked with her friend lying face down, it's up to her to figure out what happened.


Hakuou Academy: A prestigious school for the wealthy and gifted. The classes are hard, the schoolwork is rigorous, and the tuition rates would make the Hiltons blush. This is of no concern to the students who are dedicated and intelligent enough to meet the steep standards of the Academy… for the most part.

There are exceptions to every rule, and they always seemed to gravitate towards one Hinagiku Katsura. These exceptions tended to associate most closely with her. She was very tolerant of this fact. As the student body president, it was her responsibility to adapt and help those around her, a responsibility she took very seriously. This often led her into… undesirable situations.

Tonight was one such situation. It was very late, near 11:30 at night, and Hinagiku had been called to the meeting room of the Student Council by Miki Hanabishi, a childhood friend and one of the bigger exceptions. She was always doing things like this, and Hinagiku was certain it was only to get on her nerves. Nonetheless, she found herself in the elevator leading up to the top floor of Hakuou's signature clock tower. Hinagiku, having a massive fear of heights, felt each and every meter wearing on her heart as the old elevator ascended.

Hinagiku leaned against the ornate wall of the elevator and closed her eyes. "_I can't believe I'm up here so late again,_" she thought. "_That's two times in as many weeks. I'd rather be asleep after that embarrassing trip to Shimoda…" _Her face turned red. "No! Stop talking about that; that never happened!" she shouted to nobody in particular. After realizing this, she sighed. "And now you're talking to yourself on top of that. It's too late at night for this, Hina. Just go in, see what Miki wants, and then you can go home and go to bed."

This statement hung in the air for a while. "Hang on…" she said. "Why would she ask me to show up here? Why not the faculty office? That would have made a bit more sense…" She laughed. "Yep, it really is late; I'm trying to apply logic to Miki… Still…"

The elevator came to a stop. It seemed to have taken even longer than usual to make it to the top. It was no surprise, given the age of the elevator, but Hinagiku didn't want to spend any more time in the clock tower than was absolutely necessary. An inconvenient yawn struck her as the elevator doors slid open as a loud bell chimed signaling her arrival.

"Alright, Miki, I'm here," Hinagiku announced. "What was it that you needed to…" When she opened her eyes, she was left speechless. The situation had changed.

The doors to the lounge were wide open, and through them, she saw books scattered all over the floor. Nobody was in the room. "Miki? Where are you?" She exited the elevator and ran into the room, quickly surveying the scene. "She's not in here?" Hinagiku asked herself. She was getting frantic. She decided to check her office. Maybe she had wandered in there when whatever happened in there occurred.

She quickly ran down the hall into the office of the Student Council President, the place where Hinagiku spent the majority of her time at Hakuou. Again, the doors were wide open, and gasped at what she saw.

Miki Hanabishi lay face down on the floor, papers, notebooks, and binders scattered all over the room around her. Hinagiku's jaw dropped; something had happened, and she hadn't been there to stop it. She ran to her friend, shouting, "Miki! Miki, are you all right?" Hinagiku rarely lost her composure, but seeing her friend face down awakened a kind of fear she was not anticipating. Kneeling down next to Miki, she grabbed her wrist and placed her index finger over it. "_Please be all right._"

She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt a strong pulse. Her friend was alive. "That's good…" she whispered. She yawned again. "I wonder what happened here. Should I call the police?" She stood and surveyed the room. "No. The last thing I need is a police investigation to take up time I could better spend elsewhere. Besides, if I'm good, I can figure this out tonight. Assuming Miki wakes up within the hour." She suddenly realized that she had no way of knowing when her friend's consciousness would be restored. There was no way of knowing when she'd been knocked out. "This could take hours…"

Miki sat bolt upright almost immediately after she said this. Hinagiku leapt and screamed, taking a defensive stance after this moment of weakness. "Miki?" She sighed. "God, you scared me…" She lowered her arms.

"So Hina can be scared," Miki said, maintaining a neutral expression.. "I never thought I'd live to see it."

"Stop talking like that," Hinagiku snapped. "I don't know what you think, but I'm still human and I can still be scared… Particularly up here."

"What?"

"Nothing. Forget I said anything." Hinagiku walked over to her desk to find it in complete disarray. "Unforgivable… Now I'll have to reorganize this mess." She folded her arms and thought for a moment. "Come to think of it," she turned to face Miki, "what were you doing up here in the first place? Why couldn't we meet at my house, or in the faculty room with Yukiji if we had to meet at school?"

"Well, Hina's always telling us that this is a place of official school business," Miki began.

"_Only because you three always treat it like your private playground,_" Hinagiku thought.

"And on that note, Izumi forgot to turn in a class report, and it was my turn to bring it to the school," Miki explained.

"_This happens so often that you have a rotation!? I'll have to have a talk with Segawa about this._" Hinagiku gritted her teeth. "I see…" she said. "So what happened next?"

"I came up and sat on the sofa in the lounge to wait for Hina to arrive."

"_It feels like she's talking about me as though I'm not here._"

"Ten minutes went by. I was about to get up and wait on the balcony when I thought I heard a noise. I got up to take a look…"

The silence hung in the air. Hinagiku broke the silence. "Then?" she asked.

Miki was silent for a few seconds. "That's all."

Hinagiku turned around. "I'm going home," she said.

"I couldn't say what happened even if I wanted to," Miki explained.

"The culprit probably knocked you out at around that time. What you heard was probably him rummaging through the meeting room. There's no sign of a struggle, so I guess your story makes sense."

"_Unfortunately, that means she didn't see what happened. It looks like that's the most I'm getting out of her._"

Hinagiku sat on her ransacked desk. The papers were more concentrated there. "If something important was stolen, it would have been on my desk. I think we should look around here first."

"Does that make me Watson, then?" Miki asked.

"Jumping the gun a bit there, aren't we?" Hinagiku asked, grabbing papers and skimming over their contents. "Can you check out the papers and books on the other side of the room? It might give us some idea of what he was doing there."

"What do you mean?" Miki asked.

"Whoever broke in here, should have known that anything official, anything worth stealing, has to go through me," Hinagiku explained. "Furthermore, this desk is one of the more prominent pieces of furniture in the room. Why then," she tapped the desk beneath her, "was this not the first and last place our unwelcome guest looked? Because if I'm right, he found what he was looking for in this desk."

Miki crossed the room and began picking up papers on the far side. "Does this mean you know what happened?"

"Yes, but before I embarrass myself and turn out to be wrong," Hinagiku joked, "Tell me what's over there."

Miki flipped through the sheets. "Nothing but class reports, copies of transcripts, minutes sheets... Lots of stuff."

"Interesting… Every sheet on or near this desk is related to finances. Spending, income, donations… All from past academic years. They were before my time, so I'm ashamed to say I don't know much about them." She got off of the desk and walked around to the other side. The drawers were all open and mostly empty. Seeing it reminded her that she would need to reorganize everything. One thing she didn't see anywhere in the vicinity confirmed her suspicions.

"All these financial records are pages from Hakuou Student Council Account Ledgers," she said. "They were supplementary materials stuck inside the book, little notes, it looks like. You'll notice that the old books are all around the desk. Past ledgers are kept in this room for five years after a completed term, after that they are transferred to the records room for safekeeping." Hinagiku paused to let Miki ask a question if she needed to. When none came, she continued.

"That means there should be six books total in this room. As you can see…" she pointed to one of the books on the floor. "One. Two. Three. Four… _Five_."

Miki raised her hand. "So, what does that mean?"

"_Weren't you paying attention!?_"

Hinagiku sighed hopelessly. "What that means is that our intruder was after the current ledger," she explained, "and it looks like he succeeded. And that's just about the worst thing that could've been stolen."

"How?" asked Miki.

"Well… The ledgers have to be submitted for review at every trimester student council meeting, the next of which happens to be tomorrow. If there is no ledger to present, that reflects poorly on me, which in turn reflects poorly on the student body. That must be the motive: this culprit is trying to sabotage the Student Council, and take me down in the process. As president, I cannot allow that to happen. That's why it's imperative that we solve this case tonight!" Her declaration echoed throughout the office.

Miki began to applaud. "That's our president!" she cheered. "Always thinking of the students."

Hinagiku blushed… again… "Stop it. You're embarrassing me," she said. "We don't even know who did it or when they came in. Now… There were some books scattered in the lounge too, can you go over there and look around, 'Watson?'" Hinagiku smiled.

Miki grinned. "You can count on me, Hina," she said. She turned to face the door.

"Hey!" Hinagiku called. When Miki turned around, she added, "Be careful. You already scared me once tonight."

Miki gave a thumbs up. "Don't worry, Hina." She walked out the door as the clock tower struck midnight.

"Better finish going through all these drawers," Hinagiku said to herself. "I need to be thorough, after all." She emptied the contents of one particularly messy drawer. "I never want to see another book for at least a month." Another yawn overtook her, and after it passed, she noticed something of interest, something that didn't belong. The book that she now held in her hands didn't belong there. "So what does that mean?"

And the logic began to flow. The president fought to suppress a grin.

Hinagiku ran into the lounge, gripping the book she had just found. "Miki! Stop everything! I've got it!" she shouted.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to stop. Miki lie on the sofa in the middle of the room, sleeping. Hinagiku checked her watch. "_She's only been in here for two minutes!_"

Hinagiku stomped her foot. "HEY!!" she barked. Miki screamed and fell off of the couch. "Have a nice nap, _Watson_?"

Miki laughed. "I was… cycling through the evidence."

"I'll bet," Hinagiku sighed. "I think I've got this more or less figured out, and I wanted you to be here to hear it."

Miki stood up, "You do!? Who did it?"

"First let's recap what we know," Hinagiku began. "You, having come up to give me the class report, waited for me in the lounge. You sat on that couch, and waited for ten whole minutes before getting up to go out on the terrace to keep waiting." Saying that made her realize how grateful she was that she didn't have to investigate out there.

"But before you got out there, you heard a noise from down the hall," she continued. "You went in there to investigate, promptly getting knocked out after entering the room. That's when I arrived to find the entire top floor in disarray. Books were everywhere, and papers were scattered out of order.

"This alone points to two facts. One is that the intruder had to have arrived before you, because had you been sitting on this couch, you would have been facing out these open doors, with a clear view of the elevator."

"That's amazing," Miki replied.

"I'm not done yet," Hinagiku snapped. "However, this leads into fact number two. Why would the intruder let you wander into the office? Why wouldn't he have knocked you out in the lounge?"

"How would he have known I was here?" Miki asked.

Hinagiku pointed to the elevator. "When the elevator arrives on this floor, a bell chimes, one loud enough to hear from both the lounge _and_ the president's office. If he needed you out of his way, he could've had a much more opportune time to do it."

Miki gulped uncomfortably.

"From this, I conclude that the intruder could not have arrived before you!" Hinagiku pointed her finger at Miki, who looked thoroughly confused.

"Do you need a nap, Hina?" she asked.

Hinagiku smirked. "On the contrary, I've never felt more alert in my life. Now, if the intruder could not have logically arrived either before you or after you, that leaves only one possibility: The intruder and you arrived at the same time!"

"Incredible!" Miki exclaimed.

"In fact, you and the intruder arrived in the exact same place, because you and the intruder… were the same person!"

Miki reeled in shock. "You…"

"That's right," Hinagiku nodded, placing her hand on her hip. "I thought it was strange at first. What the intruder needed was what was in my desk. Why would he have ransacked the lounge _after_ obtaining the ledger? There was no logic to the culprit's action. I think that this fact alone points to you. Papers and books were scattered around without discretion, among them were minutes sheets, student records, and _class reports_.

"Speaking of which," Hinagiku held up the anomalous book. "I found Segawa's class report, Miki. Most recent entry: Yesterday. What was this doing in my desk, almost twelve feet from where I found you?"

Miki turned red.

"If this isn't why you were up here, then what were you doing?" Hinagiku folded her arms. "That's where it gets easy, and though it pains me to say this, you stole the ledger."

Miki was silent. She cast her gaze downward.

Hinagiku sighed. "Why'd you do it?" she asked. "We've been friends since elementary school. Why would you do this? I know you've never exactly been a saint, but you were a good person."

Miki started to laugh. This startled Hinagiku, who again launched into a defensive stance.

"No, calm down, Hina," she said. "You're right. I took the ledger."

Hinagiku lowered her arms. "So you admit it?" she asked. "Then why!?"

Miki smiled. "We thought… it would be fun… to pick on Hina."

Hinagiku let that sink in before letting her jaw drop. "WHAT!?"

Miki laughed again. "We were never going to keep whatever it was we hid. Of course, we had to draw straws to see who would play the victim."

"WHAT!?"

"I came up here, then looked around for whatever looked the most important. I found some books and sheets with sums of money written on them, and I picked the one with the most recent date. Then I called and asked you to meet me, and pretended to be knocked out when I heard the elevator chime."

"WHAAAAAAAAAT!?"

"I have to say, I didn't think you'd figure it out so quickly," Miki stated bluntly.

Hinagiku hit her friend with the leather bound class report. "You called me up here… when I'd normally be asleep… just to screw with my head!?"

"You seem angry," Miki said meekly.

"We have a trimester meeting tomorrow! I have a speech to make! I need sleep!"

"I think you'll be fine tomorrow," Miki said sincerely. "You solved this case. I think that you'll be ready to handle whatever comes your way tomorrow."

Hinagiku sighed. "_I sure hope you're right_," she thought.

"You three always know how to keep me on my toes, don't you?" she asked.

Miki smiled. "That's the duty of the student body officers."

This made Hinagiku chuckle. "For now, your only job is to tell me where the ledger is."

"Oh, I hid it out on the terrace," Miki explained, pointing out to the open air balcony.

Hinagiku growled, shaking a fist vengefully. "_The one place I'd never have inspected. That's a dirty trick!_"

Miki stood up and went out to the terrace, returning with the little leather bound ledger. Hinagiku breathed a sigh of relief and took the ledger in her hand. The ordeal had reached its ending, anticlimactic though it may have been.

"Well, it's been a crazy night, hasn't it?" Miki asked.

"Yeah," Hinagiku nodded.

"Let's head home, President," Miki said.

"Well… before we do that," Hinagiku began. "You… did steal financial records from the Student Council. Regardless of intent, you broke the rules."

Miki began to sweat. "Oops."

"However, I'll look the other way this time—"

"Thanks, Pres—"

"I'm not finished. I'll look the other way this time if you reorganize every document and record book you scattered around up here," Hinagiku said with a sickly sweet smile.

"Huh?" Miki asked, dumbfounded.

Hinagiku looked at her watch and walked over to the couch. "If you start now, you can be finished in time for the meeting. I left a guide to my filing system in my desk drawer on… Oh, what am I saying? You know where they are."

Miki was completely pale. "B-but…"

"Don't worry about Segawa and Asakaze," Hinagiku reassured, sitting on the couch. "I'll see to it that they're taught too. And I assure you, I won't go easy on them like I am on you." The sweet manner in which Hinagiku said this somehow made it all the more ominous. After stretching her arms and yawning one last time, the tired president rested her head and closed her eyes. "I look forward to seeing your results in the morning."


End file.
